[14/06/2017 09:23]

GENEVA-SABA

The number of displaced persons because of the Saleh-Houthi militia's coup in Yemen exceeds 2.5 million, the chief of the Unit for Management of IDP Camps stated.

In a presentation at a seminar on human rights, held by the Yemeni Alliance for Monitoring HR Violations in Geneva last month, Mr. Najeeb al-Saadi said: " Until mid-May, the Unit recorded 2442289 persons displaced internally, and more than 300 thousand displaced beyond the nations borders; Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Djibouti, Turkey, Malaysia, Sudan, Somalia and Jordan."

"The forcible displacement began in 2004, when 400 thousand persons left Saada and did not want to return for fear of Houthi reprisal," he said.

The male adults constitute 22% of the total displaced because of the ongoing coup. Women constitute 23%, male children 28%, young girls 27%, the Units records show.

Mrs. Hooriya Mashehoor Yemen's former Minister of Human Rights said in a presentation in the seminar: "Yemen has been classified as the least developed world country despite being on a geographic position and with a shipping lane of global importance. Add to that the an abundance of resources, e.g. gas, petroleum and agriculture."

Yemen, she said, is the least developed in terms of per capita income as the average earned income per year is very meager owing to the rampant corruption of the former regime headed by Ali Abdullah Saleh."

Many households are struggling to survive now as the head of the household was put to prisons by the coup armed militia, she said.

In a presentation, Yusuf Abu Rass, a member of the Alliance, said: "Taiz has been under a strangling siege for more than two years. The militias freely exercise all types of systematic violations against the civilians. All the violations mentioned in the International Humanitarian Law have been practiced by the militias against the people of the city."

The militia's violations in Taiz in the first half of 2017 numbered 1535, he said.

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